Broken Blades Don't Sing (Tales of Ashkar Book One) (12 page)

"Serraemas!" she cheered, her complexion
suddenly lightening. She ran over to Serraemas and jumped on him,
completely ignoring both Raxxil and the lizard-man. Serraemas made
no effort to catch her, yet she remained clinging onto him.

"Tarla", Serraemas replied without emotion. He
still stood normally, as if there wasn't a busty woman attempting
to smother him.

Raxxil scratched his head in puzzlement. "Last I
recall, we waded for the better part of a day through a weird
forest, we were attacked by not only vicious fireballs, but a
hungry, horse-swallowing vegetable just to get here... and you give
Serraemas a hug?"

"Oh, you mean Fanny?" said the witch as she
hopped off of the expressionless statue and turned to Raxxil. She
brought her right hand to her chin and looked up pensively. "Now
that you mention it, I haven't fed her in a few days!" The woman
then looked over at Erendil and the remaining two horses, her eyes
widening as she cupped her mouth. "Oops, she ate one of your little
horsies, didn't she? We'll have to do something about that."

Raxxil laughed hysterically. "Too bad. Your
plant's been barbecued."

Tarla dismissed his comment with the wave of her
hand. "Please. How do you think Babu, Wabu, Gabu, Zabu, and Pabu
spawned anew? This goes beyond your petty embers."

"Let me introduce my companions", said
Serraemas, changing the subject. He gestured toward the
scaly-skinned beast. "This is Erendil. As you can see, he is in
need of some help regarding his arm…"

Tarla hurried over to the lizard man and
inspected the wound. "Oh, you poor thing! Let's get you fixed right
away." She turned and hustled in the direction of the house.

"...and this is Raxxil", continued
Serraemas.

"Yeah, yeah... whatever", replied the witch
nonchalantly without even looking back to acknowledge the explosive
elementalist.

Raxxil glanced at Serraemas and raised his brows
for an answer, but only received a shrug.

"BURN THE HOUSE DOWN!" shouted Vrand again.

"If she keeps this shit up I'm gonna raze the
whole forest", Raxxil replied.

Serraemas moved to follow the woman, and Raxxil
did the same. Nearing the house, its door magically swung open as
the witch entered first, then the towrth, who had to duck slightly
to fit through the door, and then Serraemas.

Raxxil lingered for a moment, hearing the growls
of the five hounds. He was tempted to just go around the back and
obliterate them.

"Raxxil", Serraemas commanded from inside.

Raxxil sighed, but before obliging he first
ensured that the two horses were settled in their reigns, then
lowered his head as he entered the house.

While deceptively simplistic on the outside, its
interior beheld several odd spectacles. The chimney rose from the
far wall, with a fire sparking and crackling. There were two rooms:
the main one where they stood, and a door toward the back that led
to what he presumed was a bedroom. A wooden table with several
chairs occupied the space to his right, with a large cauldron
placed inside the chimney atop burning wood. The walls were lined
with shelves, some filled with books, others displaying strange
items. A single broom floated several feet above the ground as if
suspended by an unseen force.

Raxxil examined one odd item in particular. It
was a glass jar filled with eyeballs suspended in a solution. He
could not tell if they were human eyes, and he wasn't even sure he
wanted to know. He grunted, then plopped down onto one of the
chairs and crossed his arms. The table was littered with vials and
flasks of varying colors. He looked over at Erendil, noting that
the lizard-man seemed much more interested in the bizarre
collection. Erendil carefully inspected each item, ignoring his own
wounds entirely.

"You'll have plenty of time to look, but first
come and sit", said Tarla as she grabbed the lizard-man's uninjured
arm and forcefully dragged him over to the table, pushing him
without much grace into one of the open chairs.

He slammed hard and let out a grunt, but
otherwise remained silent as he watched her intently. She sat down
into the seat next to the lizard-man, and immediately unwrapped the
rudimentary first aid that they had initially applied. By now it
was more red than white.

She muttered an incantation and hovered her open
palms just above his injured arm. The witch’s words were followed
by a strange, unnatural glow that emanated from her hands and was
accompanied by a resonating hum. Gradually, the bleeding stopped.
Following that, the gashes vanished magically as the wounds healed.
After several minutes, all that remained was the towrth's green,
scaly skin, as if nothing had happened in the first place. Both the
glow and hum ceased as Tarla withdrew, a satisfied grin playing
across her face.

Erendil stood up and made several motions with
his right arm, testing the results. After a few moments, he turned
to the witch and bowed in gratitude. "Thank you very much". He then
turned and tried to continue admiring her strange collection, but
she grabbed his arm again and slammed him back into his seat.

"I'm not finished with you yet!" she giggled
with a mischievous complexion. Tarla turned to Serraemas and placed
her hands on her hips, giving him an incredulous look. “Why didn't
you tell me Erendil had dark element?”

Raxxil raised a brow, and looked over at
Serraemas. The staff-wielder retained his emotionless face, but
walked over and sat down next to them. He looked at Erendil
pensively, who seemed just as puzzled as everyone else.

“Oh, you didn't know?” asked Tarla playfully.
"It is strange, though. Someone actually sealed away his powers for
some reason, but I think I can crack it!” The witch stood from her
chair and walked over to one of the shelves that contained her
library of books.

Meanwhile, Raxxil looked over at the archer.
Erendil seemed absolutely taken aback by this new revelation. He
then turned to the witch and narrowed his eyes. “So how come you're
not trying to cast a hex on him? I thought you hated people like
him?”

“If I was going to hex someone, it would be
you”, retorted the witch, still focused on her texts. "But you are
correct, albeit only partially. Erendil is naturally attuned to the
element through his elemental. Those like myself only have a
problem when there is dark magic involving demons or Hell. Demonic
magic is very dangerous in a fool’s hands." Tarla placed the book
back and went for another one. “Besides, a friend of Serraemas is a
friend of mine!” She paused for a moment, turned to Raxxil, and
scowled. “Well, not all the time.”

Raxxil rolled his eyes, but decided to remain
quiet.

"CONFLAGRATE HER!" yelled his elemental.

Serraemas looked over at Raxxil and gave him a
stern expression.

“What do you want me to do?” defended Raxxil.
“He's not going to shut up even if I tell him to.”

“Hey, Vrand”, said Zaranet out loud.

“WHAT?" responded the explosive elemental.

“Shut up”, scolded Zaranet.

"NO!” shot back Vrand.

“Ah, here it is!” interjected Tarla as if she
wasn’t aware of the invasive exchange.

Each elementalist was able to speak with their
own elemental in a manner that others could not hear, like a
wavelength or a frequency. Some elementalists—namely Serraemas and
Raxxil—had bonded to the point where they could exchange words with
each other’s elemental.

The witch now held in her hands a dusty, old
book that seemed as if it had been discarded for many years. She
walked over to the table, setting aside several flasks and vials to
make room for the large book. She set it down and flipped through
the pages. After several moments, she stopped at a page.

"Aha!" Tarla exclaimed triumphantly. She then
rummaged through her collection of items that littered the table,
occasionally glancing back at the page. "Okay, so I need one part
gak juice, two parts bidle blood, a dash of sanara herb, and last
but not least... a little something special."

The witch tossed all of the ingredients into her
cauldron. It bubbled for a brief moment before releasing a plume of
smoke with a poof, and the solution turned black in color. Tarla
took an empty glass from the table and dipped it into the cauldron
quickly, then handed it to Erendil, who still sat with a curious
expression. He looked up at her, apparently unsure of what to do
with the concoction.

"Drink up, now", she said reassuringly, like a
mother would to her sick child.

Erendil shifted his gaze back to the glass and
swirled it slightly, then lifted it to his mouth and downed the
contents in one gulp. He set the glass down, and looked up again at
the witch. Everyone waited for something to happen, and silence
befell the small house. After several uneventful moments, Tarla
brought her hand to her chin and furrowed her brows.

"Well, this is odd", said the witch. She walked
over to the book and skimmed through the page again. A moment later
she chuckled to herself.

Raxxil smirked. “So you’re a phony, after—“

"Of course!" she blurted, interrupting Raxxil
before he could finish. She hurried to the lizard-man and poked him
on the chest with her index finger. An insignia that depicted a
glowing hand print suddenly appeared around the area of Erendil's
chest where the witch had touched. It glowed white, shining
brighter and brighter until the sound of glass shattering pierced
the air. As abruptly as it had appeared, the symbol was now
gone.

"I haven't seen something like that in a while",
said Tarla. "Space magic can be pretty odd. How does it feel?"

Was this Sora’s doing all along?

Erendil shrugged. "I don’t feel any different at
all."

"Don’t worry, it’ll come eventually!" said the
witch with a warm smile. "Now, my reward!" She scurried over to
where Serraemas sat and jumped on him again, wrapping her left arm
around his neck and burying her face into his chest. Erendil and
Raxxil looked at each other with confused expressions, but remained
quiet. With a shrug Erendil rose from his chair to satiate his
curiosity of bizarre collections.

Raxxil watched as the broom sprung to life,
hovering behind the lizard-man with a watchful gaze as if it had
eyes. Erendil attempted to touch the various items, but was
interrupted every time with a swift strike to the hand from the
magical broom. After several failed attempts, the towrth employed a
different tactic. He tried to hold the stick with one hand and
reach at a jar with his left, but was foiled again; the broom
appeared to be augmented in a way that was unnatural, and wrested
free from his grasp with ease, striking him again as it did so. His
curiosity seemingly bruised—along with his hand—the lizard-man drew
back and resorted to merely looking at the strange collection.
Raxxil couldn’t help but chuckle at Erendil’s unfortunate
dilemma.

"It's so good to see you, Serraemas", said
Tarla, breaking the silence. She latched onto him like a snake to
its prey, yet he still sat unmoved. Attempting to garner some sort
of response from the apathetic elementalist, the witch feigned a
swoon, letting go and falling toward the floor. However, Serraemas
made no motion to catch her, instead looking over at Raxxil.

His dark blue eyes gave a
this-isn’t-what-you-think look.

The witch stopped herself just before hitting
the floor, and instead hovered a few inches off the ground. She
crossed her arms and feigned a melancholic expression as she
hovered for a brief moment, then raised herself up and planted her
feet on the floor. She grinned at Serraemas devilishly.

What… the hell…?

"I just love it when you play hard to get!" she
exclaimed with glee. "What else do you require, my dear?"

Serraemas shifted in his chair and cleared his
throat. "We need help in tracking someone that is carrying some
sort of magical book. He seems to be able to wield dark element
somehow, and that very same book is the source. Our task is to
retrieve it."

"Why not just let the Executioners handle it?"
asked Tarla, narrowing her eyes.

"Because that's our mission dumbass", intervened
Raxxil. "Now that you mention it, why don't you go for it? You just
said your kind didn't like that kind of stuff."

Tarla brushed off his remark with the wave of
her hand and a click of her tongue. "Now, now little boy. Adults
are talking, so be quiet and go play with yourself."

Raxxil chuckled heartily. "Cold as ice! Now I
see why you two get along so well."

"It is the task entrusted to us... that is all",
Serraemas stated while giving Raxxil a deadly glance. "Can you
point us in the right direction?"

"Absolutely, dear", replied the witch. "There
was a large spike in dark energy coming from Farrin Forest a couple
of weeks ago. Not sure what happened, but this person must know he
has enemies and would most likely be trying his best to mask his
presence. Whatever it is that caused him to show himself, it was
out of necessity."

Serraemas crossed his arms and furrowed his
brows as he looked down. "It must have been Jorne. They encountered
each other and a battle ensued, forcing our target to use his
powers and reveal himself."

“Then what are we waiting for?” asked
Raxxil.

Serraemas turned to Raxxil. "Our next
destination lies west, then. It should be about a day's travel on
horseback. We leave immediately."

Tarla walked over to Serraemas and wrapped her
arms around him once more. "What's the hurry? The sun is beginning
to set, and you need to rest!"

"Thank you for your aid Tarla, but we cannot
lose any more time", replied Serraemas. He moved across the room to
the door despite the fact that the woman still clutched onto him
and dragged along the floor. She sighed, but offered no more
resistance. Raxxil and Erendil exchanged glances, then followed
suit.